Tag: police state

Southern Cone
Chile protests

UN documents rights abuses in Chile protests

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said in a new report that international human rights norms had been violated by both police and army personnel during the recent mass protests in Chile which led the government to declare a state of emergency. The report said that these rights violations should be prosecuted. The 30-page report, based on research during the first three weeks of November, extensively details multiple allegations, including of torture, and rape and other forms of sexual violence, against people held in detention. The leader of the OHCHR mission in Chile, Imma Guerras-Delgado, told journalists in Geneva, that the overall management of demonstrations by the police “was carried out in a fundamentally repressive manner.” (Photo: KaosEnLaRed)

South Asia
CAA

Protests sweep India over citizenship law

India’s northeastern state of Assam has exploded into protest over the passage of a new national citizenship law. The army has been deployed, a curfew imposed in state capital Guwahati, and internet access cut off. At least five people have been killed as security forces fired on demonstrators. The new law allows religious minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to apply for Indian citizenship. This means it effectively excludes Muslims, and mostly apples to Hindus and Sikhs. Critics of the ruling Hindu-nationalist government say it therefore violates India’s founding secular principles. But while secularists and Muslims are protesting the Citizenship Amendment Act on this basis elsewhere in India, the biggest protests have been in Assam—motivated by fear that the state will be overrun by an influx from Bangladesh, threatening its cultural and linguistic identity. (Image: Sowmya Reddy)

The Andes
FELCC

‘Anti-terrorist’ militarization in Bolivia

The new Bolivian regime’s Government Minister Arturo Murillo has announced creation of a special “Anti-Terrorist Group” (GAT), drawn from elite units of the National Police force, to “completely disarticulate all the terrorist cells” operating in the country. Murillo made the announcement at a meeting of the National Police Special Anti-Crime Struggle Force (FELCC) in Santa Cruz, where he charged that recent political violence in the country had been instrumented by foreign “terrorist” operatives financed by Venezuela as part of a plan to “destabilize” the countries of South America. He later told reporters that he would seek Israeli security aid for the new anti-terrorist unit. (Photo: La Razón)

Europe

Russia deploys Cossacks to police Crimea

Russia’s Interior Ministry has announced that “Cossacks” will be deployed, together with thede facto police, in patrolling occupied Crimea, as well as in “carrying out anti-drug measures and educational work with young people.” So-called “Cossacks” were used, with other paramilitaries, during the annexation of the peninsula in 2014 to carry out violence that Russia did not want attributed to official security fources. The group Human Rights in Ukraine believes a similar role is planned again, and that “educational work” means propaganda for the Russian military. (Photo via Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group)

The Andes
sutesal

Peru next for regional protest wave?

Weeks after a nationwide uprising in Chile was sparked by protests over transit fare hikes in the capital, politicians in neighboring Peru are issuing nervous warnings in the wake of days of street demonstrations in Lima. This week, students occupied Central Station on Lima’s Metro to demand subsidized transit fares, workers marched to oppose the privatization of the city’s water system, and hundreds protested the pending release of imprisoned right-wing political leader Keiko Fujimori. President Martin Vizcarra took note of the threat of widespread unrest when he told the Annual Conference of Executives that Peru “is not free of protests” and must work to fight corruption and close the wealth gap. But his prescription was for an “authentic” free market—precisely the policies now being protested. (Photo: Diario Uno)

The Andes
Bogota protest

Duque starts dialogue after Colombia strike

Colombia’s President Ivan Duque has convened his National Labor Concord Commission to begin the “National Conversation” he pledged this week in a bid to quell a fast-mounting anti-government protest wave. Social leaders, mayors and departmental governors from across the country are to participate in the talks. The protests escalated when trade unions, including the giant Unitary Workers Central (CUT), called a nationwide general strike, and repressive measures by the National Police only fueled the mass mobilization. (Photo: Hollman Morris via Colombia Reports)

The Andes
El Alto protest

Bolivia: security forces fire on protesters —again

At least six were killed and some 20 injured when Bolivian army and National Police troops opened fire on protesters demanding the reinstatement of deposed president Evo Morales in the working-class city of El Alto. Protesters had been blockading the entrance to Senkata gasworks and oil refinery in the city for three days when troops attempted to clear the gates to allow tanker-trucks through to supply gasoline to La Paz. The blockade of the Senkata plant has caused shortages in La Paz, and cut-backs in public transport. The hydrocarbons minister, appointed by the new de facto regime, appeared to justify the violence, saying, “Except for use of the gas, we seek to avoid aggression.” (Photo via Carwil Bjork-James)

Iran
#iranprotests

Net silence as Iran explodes into protest

Protests erupted in Iran after the government announced a 50% increase in the price of fuel, partly in response to the re-imposition of US sanctions. Spontaneous demonstrations first broke out in Sirjan, but quickly spread to several other cities, including Tehran, where petrol stations were set on fire. The regime quickly responded by imposing a near-total shut-down of the Internet and mobile data throughout the country. Security forces have already killed several protesters, and the the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has warned of “decisive” action if the unrest does not cease. (Image: Hajar Morad via Twitter)

The Andes
Sacaba

Massacre of indigenous protesters in Bolivia

Several are reported dead after National Police and army troops opened fire on indigenous demonstrators marching on the Bolivian city of Cochabamba. A march demanding the reinstatement of ousted president Evo Morales started that morning from the town of Sacaba, gateway to the Chapare region where Morales began his career as a campesino leader in the 1990s and still the heartland of his support base. When security forces attempted to block their way over a bridge, a clash ensued. The Defensoría del Pueblo, Bolivia’s official human rights office, confirmed the death of five, with 29 more injured, but local media put the death toll at nine. Some 200 were also detained. The National Police claimed on Twitter that the protesters attacked troops with “improvised firearms.” No casualties among the security forces were reported. (Image: Alba TV via Twitter)

Africa
Guinea

Guinea: deadly repression amid fear of power-grab

A new Amnesty International report warns of rising political violence in Guinea amid growing public concern that President Alpha Condé will amend the constitution to run for a third term. Nine protestors were killed last month alone, and scores arrested, inlcuding leaders of pro-democracy movements. Dozens of protesters have been sentenced to a year in prison for attending an “illegal assembly.” (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection)

Africa
Uganda protests

Uganda: military crackdown on student protests

Ugandan police and military troops have responded harshly to students protesting fee increases at Makerere University in Kampala. Human Rights Watch reports that troops have “fired tear-gas into student residences, raided dormitories, and beaten and arrested students.” Security forces have also been arresting journalists and detaining students for days without charge. The military says a board of inquiry has been set up to look into the campus violence, but HRW demanded a full and transparent investigation. (Photo: Nile Post, Kampala)

Southeast Asia
Indonesia anarchists

Indonesia: inauguration amid revolt, repression

Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo was sworn in for a second term amid an official ban on protests, and Jakarta’s streets flooded with military troops. The inauguration was preceded by a wave of mass protests, led by students but joined by labor unions and radicalized anarchist youth. The demonstrations were sparked by a new law that weakens Indonesia’s anti-corruption agency, and another instating such moralistic measures as a ban on extramarital sex. But anger was also directed at plans for a tough new criminal code, at troops mobilized to put down unrest in Papua region, and failure to stem forest fires in Sumatra and Borneo now causing toxic haze across Southeast Asia. (Photo: Anarchist Communist Group)